


I'll Look After You

by piraninjedi



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Cats, Cute, Fluff, M/M, Pre-Slash, Scent Marking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 12:39:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/622229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piraninjedi/pseuds/piraninjedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles was pretty sure he was a magnet for danger. So maybe he should have thought this through a little better. But how could he say no to those big, green eyes?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Stiles was pretty sure he was a magnet for danger.  Seriously, if you looked at everything that’s happened in the last …holy crap, it’s been almost year already!... in the last year, then his reasoning was justified.  At least he thought so. 

So when a pathetic sounding mewl caught his attention as he was taking out the garbage, he thought better about investigating.  Because there’d been the whole werewolf deal, and they’d only just figured out the kanima thing.  Jackson was fitting into the pack pretty well, even if he was a douchenozzle.  And seriously, how long had Stiles been helping them out?  Sure, he was human, but after everything’s he’s done (he’s saved Derek’s ass several times now, not to mention all the research and everything else!), didn’t that count for anything?

But no, Stiles wasn’t pack.

And that was way off the topic.  His point was, he was _not_ going to investigate strange sounds because it always led to some crazy supernatural crap that he didn’t want to deal with.  So he shoved the lid on the trash bin and turned to go back inside, all ready to play some Assassin’s Creed (though he should be studying for finals).

But that soft noise caught his attention, and to be honest, it sounded more like wounded animal than anything supernatural.  Letting out a sigh, he grumbled, “Fine.  I shouldn’t be doing this because it goes against all logic, but I will because I’m such an awesome guy.”

Something that sounded that pitiful called to him.  He had a heart, so sue him.  With that, he crouched behind the trashcan.  It was too dark to see clearly, so he whipped out his phone, using the flash to light the area.

Curled into a tiny ball was something dark and furry.  First thought that came to mind was raccoon, maybe a possum.  He started to turn away, but a furry head with pointed ears shifted and bright green eyes glowed in the light.  The creature opened its mouth, showing off pointy teeth and meowed.

A cat.

It stood and arched its back in a graceful stretch before walking forward on its front legs, stretching out its back legs.  Once its stretching was finished, it darted to Stiles, winding its dark body around his ankles, mewling softly.  It stopped and stared up at him, those green eyes begging.

“What do you want?  I don’t speak cat.  Although, that’d be pretty cool.  I mean, talking to animals like Eliza Thornberry would be awesome.  But minus the glasses and braces.  I’d totally be way cooler.” Stiles told the creature, waving his arms in his excitement.  And maybe he did sound a little crazy, talking to a cat.

It blinked.  Then yawned, not at all frightened by the teenager’s flailing limbs.

“Aha!  I bet you’re hungry!  Can’t be too much to eat on the streets.  Besides garbage, I mean.  And maybe mice.  Or birds.  But that can’t be too appetizing.”  He put a hand to his chin thoughtfully.  His dad had just left for a night shift, so bringing in the stray for a little while wouldn’t hurt.  “Alright, buddy, let’s get some food!”

Stiles grinned and bent over, carefully picking up the cat that had no problem with the teenager’s attention.  He rushed inside, to the kitchen, and set the animal on the counter to get a good look at it.  Soft black fur with a small white patch on its chest, bright green eyes, and it was fairly scrawny-looking, like it hadn’t had a good meal in awhile.

“Well, I think there’s some leftover chicken parmesan.  How’s that sound?” He asked the cat as he opened the fridge, digging around for the right container.  He really didn’t know how much a cat eats.  Despite having hung out with Scott countless times at the vet clinic, Stiles never really paid attention to how much he fed the animals.  A whole chicken breast seemed like too much for such a little thing.  But it did look hungry.

He started with half, tearing it into small pieces and feeding it to the cat, who ate gratefully.  “You’re so friendly,” Stiles said a bit later as the car danced back and forth on the counter while he ran a hand down its back.  It purred the whole time.  “Did you get lost?  Oh God, you’re lost, aren’t you?  There’s a family out there looking for you and they’ll think you’re dead or eaten or roadkill and—”

The cat looked up at him expectantly and Stiles began scratching behind its ears.  It purred some more.  “Okay, in the morning I’ll take you to Deaton.  He’s the vet, he’ll know what to do.  Although he’s kind of strange.  Like, he _knows_ things, you know?”

Stiles went to bed not long later, the cat stretched out on his chest and purring still.  He woke hours later to a strange scratching sensation on his arm.  The sun had barely risen and it was still dark in his room.  He nearly jumped out of bed at the dark creature licking his arm until he remembered the cat.

“Woah, give me a heart attack, huh?  Just like a certain sourwolf.  Although you’re much nicer than him.” It was still too early, but Stiles was fully awake, adrenaline not letting him fall back asleep.  As he was doing his morning business, he realized the cat probably had to go to the bathroom.  He didn’t have a litter pan, and he doubted the cat was toilet trained (which would be totally awesome if it were), so he shoved on his shoes and slipped a hoodie over his head, carrying the cat outside.

“Now don’t run away on me.  We’ve gotta get you to Deaton, and hopefully find your family.  Okay, Chicken?”  It was morning, too early and he needed to call the cat something other than ‘the cat.’  And it seemed to like chicken well enough, so he was going with that.

Chicken wandered around the yard before slinking its way into a bush.  A minute later, it returned and Stiles scooped the feline into his arms.

It was an hour later before Stiles made it to Vet Clinic.  Trying to figure out a way to take Chicken in his jeep had taken a good twenty minutes until he found a cardboard box that would work.  He’d thrown in a towel to make it more comfortable and Chicken seemed happy enough.

“Stiles,” Deaton greeted cautiously, glancing at the box in the teenager’s arms.

“Hey, Doc.  I found Chicken hiding behind the trashcan last night and I didn’t know what to do.”

Deaton frowned until he looked inside the box, understanding coming over him.  He lifted the cat from the box and began checking over the animal.  A few minutes later, he turned to Stiles, “Well, she appears healthy, maybe a year old.  No fleas or ear mites, surprisingly.  Just a little malnourished.  Probably been on her own for a few days.  Are you keeping her?”

Stiles blinked.  “What about her family?  I mean, someone’s gotta be missing her, right?”

Deaton shrugged.  “There’s been no report of a missing cat matching her description.  She doesn’t have a collar, and she’s not microchipped.  I can keep her here, see if anything turns up.  But she won’t be happy.”

And that was how Stiles ended up with a cat.  He stood in his living room, staring down at the bags of cat-related items he would need while he took care of Chicken.  Now, he just needed to convince his dad.

“Stiles, what’s going on?”

Dammit, he’d hoped he’d have a little bit of time to prepare.  Although, this was a much lesser evil than explaining anything werewolf related.  He’d take telling his dad he taken in a cat over lying to him any day.

“Well, Chicken was cold and hungry, and no one’s looking for her, so I sort of, maybe, kind of adopted her?  Well, not really adopted.  That’s not a good term.  We’d be more of a foster family, taking care of her until someone wants to adopt her.  Dr. Deaton said she’d be happier here because there’s already too many cats at the clinic.”  His speech was rushed, as usual, but John understood, having spent years listening to his son ramble on about the craziest of things.

John looked at the black and white cat for a long moment.  It blinked at him, swishing its tail from one side to another, lazily.  He sighed.  “We’ll see how this works out.”

Stiles blinked.  That had gone so much easier than he expected.


	2. Chapter 2

“Dude, you smell different,” Scott mumbled as he stood next to the Jeep while Stiles rifled through his backpack, trying to find a pen.

“Aha!” he cried victoriously, clutching the pen between his fingers.  He looked to his best friend curiously, “What’d you say?” 

Scott sighed, “I said you smell different.”

Stiles blinked as he stared at his friend.  “Different?  Nope, nothing different about me, no siree.  Well, I did try a new shampoo.  Maybe that’s it?”

The other teen paused, seeming to consider the idea.  He shrugged, finding no reason to argue, and turned to head inside the school building.  Stiles mentally sighed as he grabbed his backpack and shut the door to the Jeep.

It wasn’t like he was hiding the fact that he was temporarily taking care of Chicken.  But Stiles had seen the way the cats at the vet clinic acted around Scott.  Cats and dogs.  Or well, cats and wolves in this case.  So Stiles would just have to keep the werewolves away from his house for awhile, until Chicken was adopted.

Of course, that was easier said than done.  Because now that Scott and Allison were ‘taking a break’ in their relationship, Scott was making up for basically ignoring Stiles for the last year.  Not that Stiles was complaining, no way.  It was awesome to have his best friend actually pay attention once in awhile.

The thing was, most of the time they ended up at Stiles house, playing video games.  So he needed to come up with a reason to hang out at Scott’s.  No problem.  He could do that.  He was Stiles Stilinski, after all.  Evil mastermind behind the Hale Pack.  Well, not evil, but certainly the brains.  Because when has Scott’s, or even Derek’s, plans ever worked?

Exactly.

With that set in mind, Stiles headed off to first period.  By fourth, he was not-so-silently freaking out.  How was he supposed to lie to a werewolf?  They had that whole I-can-hear-your-heartbeat thing down pat, and even Scott could mostly tell when Stiles was lying, without werewolf superpowers.  God, what was he supposed to do?

“What’s wrong?” Isaac’s voice snapped him from his thoughts as the curly-haired werewolf fell in step beside him.

“What?  Nothing’s wrong.  Everything’s peachy,” Stiles said too quickly.

Isaac gave him a stare, those light blue eyes doubtful.  “Really?  Because you were just complaining about what you were supposed to do.”

Oh, God, had he been talking out loud again?  By the look on Isaac’s face, Stiles took that as a yes.  He sighed dramatically.  “It’s nothing.  Just Stiles being Stiles.”

Before Isaac could argue anything further, the teacher walked into the classroom and Stiles breathed a sigh of relief.  Escaped that conversation for now.  But he certainly didn’t miss the look that Isaac sent Erica.  And Stiles and Erica were in fifth period together. 

Dammit, why were werewolves so persistent?

Okay, plan.  Stiles needed a plan.  Tuesday and Thursday, he’d be safe because of lacrosse practice and on Wednesday, Scott worked late at the vet.  So that left tonight, Friday, and the whole weekend.  And then the following week.  Crap, how was he going to do this?  He shouldn’t have let Dr. Deaton convince him.  But Chicken had looked at him with those big, green eyes and Stiles couldn’t say no.

He sighed.

“Mr. Stilinski,” the teacher called, obviously sensing his lack of attention.  She was almost as bad as Mr. Harris, but at least she didn’t just say he was an idiot outright. 

Stiles smiled and tried to look as innocent as possible, “Yes, Mrs. Stone?”

“Care to hazard a guess to the problem on the board?”

The teenager looked beyond the portly teacher to gaze at the chalkboard.  It looked awfully familiar.  Aha!  He’d actually done that problem over the weekend.  He so totally knew the answer, “The inverse of f is ten to the x over three plus one.”  He may have sounded a little overly confident in his answer.

Mrs. Stone hummed and continued on with her lecture, clearly put out that Stiles knew the answer.  She didn’t call on him again and Stiles was free to plan.

ooooo

“…and now Erica won’t stop pestering me,” Stiles complained as plopped down on the bedroom floor, sprawled out on his stomach.  He fed Chicken a small treat and she chomped down on it messily, licking her chops very much like a canine.  The teen laughed.  “You are one strange cat, you know that Chicken?”

Chicken proceeded to butt her head against Stile’s face, purring and rubbing her body along his shoulders.  She turned around and repeated the process on the other side of the teen.  “Alright, I’ve got to get to school,” he said as he stood up, after giving Chicken and good scratch behind the ears.

He’d made it to Friday at least.  But now there was a pack meeting tonight, which he had no idea what he was going to do.  He hadn’t even planned on going because a) he really wanted to avoid the wolves so they wouldn’t freak out about why he smelled strange—Scott’s words, not his, and b) he wasn’t pack anyway, so why did he have to go?  But Scott had begged him to go and Stiles relented gloomily. 

He might be able to fool Scott, deter Isaac and Erica’s curiosity, while Boyd didn’t really seem all that interested and Jackson could give two shits about Stiles.  But Derek would go all Alpha wolf on him.  He’d be all, “If you don’t tell me what you’re hiding, I’ll rip your throat out.  With my teeth.”  The Alpha was very fond of that particular threat and it worked every time.

Or maybe it had to do with the fact that Derek tended to pin Stiles against a wall or door, whatever, and that the wolf also tended to get really, really close and Stiles was just a teenager and Derek was probably the sexiest man he’d ever actually met in person, and really, how could he just ignore Derek?  What with his ridiculous body heat and that intense _stare_!  Stiles would agree just so he wouldn’t embarrass himself.

He sighed as he walked into the school.  He hadn’t seen Scott’s bicycle so he assumed his friend was running late.  It wasn’t anything new.  So when Scott’s voice said from right behind him, “You smell like a cat!” Stiles nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Dude, what the hell man?  I thought we agreed on no scaring the poor human?”

Scott looked sheepish but continued, “I didn’t realize it until just now.  But you smell like a cat.”

“Sorry, Scott.  But I’m pretty sure I’m human.  Unless I’ve sprouted cat ears and a tail?” He wiped his hand through his short hair just to be sure.  “And nope.  Nothing.”

Scott sighed and shook his head, “I didn’t mean you turned into a werecat.  It smells like you’ve been around a cat.”

“Oh.  Well, there was a cat by the garbage can this morning.  I couldn’t resist petting it.  I guess that’s why.”

Scott seemed to buy the lie—which really wasn’t a lie, except for the part that he’d found the cat last weekend, but big deal—and Stiles grinned as he headed to class. 

His mood went south when he spotted the Terrible Trio.  Okay, so Boyd wasn’t that bad and Isaac was only a little bit annoying.  But Erica was downright persistent and he knew it was going to be a long day.

He was sooo not going to the pack meeting tonight.  Scott would just have to deal.

He played it off as having too much homework, which was true, and went home feeling much better.  And hey, he actually did finish his homework.  Chicken had sat on his lap almost the entire time.  She didn’t even seem to mind Stiles’ constant fidgeting.  She just laid there and purred away.  Best cat ever.

His stomach rumbled and he stood, spotting Chicken curled up on his bed sleeping.  Tiptoeing from his room, he headed to the kitchen and made a vegetable stir-fry, making sure to leave plenty for his dad, who wouldn’t be home until late.  He even threw in some pork, just for his dad.  It was pretty damned good, if he did say so himself.  Once he finished the dishes and put the leftovers in the fridge, he headed back to his room.

He nearly had a heart attack when he made it back to his room.  Because Derek Hale was standing in the middle of his bedroom.  And of course he’d forgotten that Derek and Scott would barge into his room like they owned the place.  He hadn’t factored any of that into his plans!  But no, that wasn’t enough.  No, Derek was holding Chicken out from him, the cat’s limbs limp as it purred in the man’s hands.  “This cat has no sense of self preservation,” Derek commented as he set her down.  She proceeded to wind between Derek’s legs, meowing softly.

Stiles couldn’t help it.  He laughed.  And laughed some more.  He ended up on the floor, clutching his stomach almost in pain. 

When the growled “Stiles,” reached his ears, he sucked in a breath, trying to calm down.  But damn, that was the last thing he’d ever expected to see.  He wiped the tears from his eyes as he stood.  All week of freaking out about the wolves killing poor Chicken for nothing.

“Dude, that was seriously awesome!  I mean, I figured Chicken would go all attack!” He mimicked an angry cat but the werewolf wasn’t impressed.

“Why weren’t you at the meeting?” Derek interrupted impatiently, ignoring the cat that was still rubbing against his legs.

“Well, you see, about that.  I had homework and—”

“Don’t lie.”

Stiles gaped, “I did have homework!  It’s all done now because I am awesome, and see, if I’d gone to the meeting, I’d still have a shit ton to do.”

The wolf sighed.  “But that’s not the real reason you skipped out on the meeting,” Derek said, those blue eyes—green?  Gray?  They were such a strange color that Stiles wasn’t sure what to call them—were focused intently on the teenager and he took a step closer. 

Stiles gulped nervously.  Derek was getting a little too close for comfort and the way he was looking at him made Stiles want to either run and hide or drop on his knees and say “Take me now!”  Instead, “I didn’t want you guys finding out about Chicken.  I mean, hello, the feline and canine species are like mortal enemies right?  And she’s only staying for a little while until someone adopts her, which shouldn’t be too long because she’s awesome, and then it’s no big deal.”

Chicken seemed to give up trying to gain Derek’s attention and hopped back onto Stiles’ bed, kneading her claws into the comforter until she found a comfortable spot.

Derek hummed but didn’t seem satisfied.  Instead, he moved another step closer and Stiles took an involuntary step back.  Right against the wall.  Trapped.  Dammit, why did this always happen to him?  “There’s something you’re not telling me,” Derek said, placing his palm against the wall, right next to Stiles’ head. 

Definitely trapped.

“W-why does it matter?” Stiles stammered, heart flying a million miles per hour.  He could feel the heat from the other man’s body, he was so close.  Think of something else.  Anything.  Just not about anything Derek-related because that would only make things harder.  Literally.  “I’m not pack, so why should I go to pack meetings?”

Derek blinked, almost pulling away.  His brows furrowed and he looked almost… Confused?  Angry? “Who told you that?”

Stiles grumbled, “No one _told_ me.  I figured it out.  I’m just a human and humans don’t belong in packs.”

“You’re wrong.”  There was a sigh and suddenly Derek was resting his face against Stiles’ neck.   The teenager froze, uncertain as to what the werewolf was doing. “You and that cat are a lot alike, you know that?” Derek breathed a moment later. 

It took a long time for the words to sink in.  When they did, Stiles smiled.  He was pack.  He was part of Derek Hale’s pack.  He was about to voice his excitement when he realized that Derek was moving.  Slightly, but he was… _nuzzling_ …his neck.  Just like Chicken did sometimes.  Stiles gaped, “Are you marking me?”

He took Derek’s tensing as a definite yes.  “You barely smell like pack any more, too much like the cat.”  He pulled away and Stiles could see the uncertainty in his eyes and something else.  Was that _hunger_?  He liked to think he’s gotten better at figuring out Derek’s emotions in the last year.  Since there were so many and all.

Stiles immediately tried to reassure the werewolf, “Not that that’s a bad thing, I don’t mind.  Like, seriously.” He gave the older man a pointed look, smile tugging his lips.  “If I’d have known you felt that way, I would’ve done this a _lot_ sooner.”

He grabbed the lapels of Derek’s leather jacket and pulled the man even closer, pressing his lips to Derek’s.  That was all the control that the werewolf let him have.  Derek took charge of the kiss and Stiles moaned from the sensations.  This was way better than kissing Emily Davis back in sixth grade.

A door slammed and they pulled away immediately, both breathing heavily.  “Your dad,” Derek said and turned to leave through the window.

“Wait,” Stiles called, as loud as he could in a whisper so his dad wouldn’t hear anything.  With a grin, he said, “Dad works the late shift tomorrow night.”

Derek’s returned smirk had Stiles smiling long after the werewolf left.  He looked over to Chicken, “Seriously.  You are the best cat ever!”

She merely blinked at him before closing her eyes and napping.


End file.
